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Nuclear weapons are primarily defensive in nature and
represent the ultimate insurance against foreign invasion. This must be the
backdrop for the future of Trump-Kim meeting for which the expectations seem to
have been hastily heightened and not the much-exaggerated “historic” meeting
between the leaders of the two Koreas. No less “historic” meetings were already
held twice before––in 2000 and 2007––and the 1992 Joint Declaration for the
Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula literally stated that “The South and
the North shall not test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy
or use nuclear weapons.” We are at the very beginning, not at the end, of a long road
that may lead to nuclear-free peace with North Korea, but quite realistically
may not. Even worse, with the exaggerated expectations now, the Trump
Administration has actually increased the risk of a large-scale conflict.

Why Trump's Refusal to
Commit Unconditionally to Article 5 is Such a Blow to the Alliance
In international politics, talk is cheap, deception is a
virtue, naiveté and missed opportunities cost dearly. These are among the
lessons I learned years ago from my professor of IR, John Mearsheimer of
University of Chicago. Certainly, Hobbes or Machiavelli would agree with such
statements. But, unlike in the anarchic balance of power world, the
micro-cosmos of collective security systems and is built on unconditional
common commitments and mutual trust. Security alliances’ deterrent power rests,
among other things, on the Musketeerian doctrine of “all for one and one for
all,” as well as on the mutual resolve to apply it. NATO’s Article 5 plays that
precise role and it has been the cornerstone of the alliance’s deterrence power
for near seven decades. That is why Donald Trump’s
speech on May 25th in Brussels to the heads of the member-states of
the alliance, and his failure explicitly and …

If Japan wanted to develop nuclear weapons, there would be no better moment than now to start. As the North Korean regime grows desperate to get a more generous ransom against its nuclear program, its threats to Tokyo grew multifold. Last week Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister, warned that North Korea is preparing to launch missiles with sarin against Tokyo. The U.S. President, Donald Trump, further added to the turmoil by declaring last week that an “armada” of American military vessels is heading to the Korean peninsula, only to be contradicted by his own military, which broke the news that days later the “armada” was sailing nearby Singapore, over 3,000 miles away from the Korean peninsula, and reportedly has been travelling in the opposite direction. So much for the credibility of the American “extended deterrence”, which should guarantee the security umbrella over Japan, a policy in force since 1975. Now, both South Korea and Japan feel cheated and let down, while the U.S. …

It is rather puzzling why the supporters of populist political actors seem not to care at all about obvious and undisputed facts (or their lack thereof) that concern their candidates, while mainstream supporters tend to withdraw their support at the slightest hint of an allegation of misconduct?

Consider the following examples, although others abound: the U.S. president, Donald Trump, publicly accuses his predecessor in wiretapping his Trump Tower. The allegations are consequently officially disproved and rejected by the FBI director James Comey, and by both Republican and Democrat leaders in the House and Senate. Yet, Trump supporters continue to believe it is all a cover-up by “fake” media and “corrupt” establishment. No loss of credibility or love, it seems, for Trump by his supporters. Sticking to his claim might have even helped him consolidate further his base. During the same congressional hearing, the FBI director reveals that the Trump campaign ties with Russia are subject to…

“I couldn't wait to get to the most powerful position because I thought then I would be able to fix problems that only a leader can fix. But when I got there, I realized we needed a revolutionary change.” These are not the words of the just-inaugurated President Trump, even though they could easily be mistaken for his. These words belong to another president, long fallen into oblivion: the last Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and its first and last president – Michail Gorbachev. Unlike Trump, Gorbachev presided over a true “empire of evil”, driven by ideological fanaticism, economic determinism, and political oppression – in a way, a complete opposite of the U.S.: USSR was a communist dictatorship, U.S. is a capitalist liberal democracy; Gorbachev was a career apparatchik and a sincere believer in the virtues of communism, Trump is a businessmen with no prior political experience, whose belief in capitalism is perhaps the only certain characteristic of…

Japan just needs to play its cards well.
Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe became the first head of government to visit the U.S. president-elect in his New York tower. It was a chance to establish a personal rapport, and to gauge more precisely where Donald Trump stands vis-a-vis Japan, China, North Korea, and issues surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In the months leading to the November election, Trump raised alarm in Japan by alluding that the country should arm itself with nuclear weapons in order to better protect itself against an unpredictable North Korea, and the regional bulling of a

In one of the most memorable scenes in Black Mass, Johny Depp portraying the notorious South Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger, demonstrates the extent of his personal and unpredictable power and control when in the middle of the dinner, he playfully and innocently asks his associate John Morris for the recipe of the steak he was just served. He then makes Morris and the rest of the company squirm in front of him in fear, until relaxing again and laughing out the tense atmosphere, but not without hinting that this might or might not be the last dramatic switch off his take on the situation. No one knows what he thinks, no one can predict what would be his next act. The fear that comes from the unpredictable behavior enhances his personal power. Not surprisingly, unpredictability is a frequent trait for characters in many fiction works, portraying how a leader establishes control in a zero-gravity environment. In an unstructured, anarchic environment, unpredictability keeps both foe…